Fighting terrorism

A little more clearing-up to do

America's triumph in Afghanistan still has an untidy look

IS THE war in Afghanistan finished? Afghan commanders on the ground seem to think so. Tora Bora, al-Qaeda's last redoubt in the eastern mountains, has been smashed by more than 200 American bombs, and groups of battered prisoners have been humiliatingly paraded by their Afghan captors. Colin Powell, America's secretary of state, is well content, telling NBC last weekend that “we've destroyed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and we have ended the role of Afghanistan as a haven for terrorist activity.” As a token of victory, the Stars and Stripes flew again over the American embassy in Kabul, reopened after almost 12 years.

The caves and tunnels of Tora Bora have not, however, yielded up the master-mind. Osama bin Laden—now, thanks to a gloating videotape, definitively tied to the attacks of September 11th—is thought by many to have slipped across the border to Pakistan, perhaps as long as two weeks ago. American officials suspect that some Pushtun forces, ostensibly opposed to the Taliban, may be helping its leaders escape. Certainly no senior member has yet fallen into American hands.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's spiritual leader, is also still uncaught, perhaps holed up with 500 men in a mountain redoubt in Baghran, a village north-west of Kandahar. As soon as one mountain retreat is overrun, and is revealed to be a series of dingy caves littered with incriminating papers, another hellish bolt-hole comes up to replace it. There may be many Taliban last stands.

Meanwhile, the interim government in Kabul, led by Hamid Karzai, a Pushtun tribal leader, is slowly gathering courage. On December 17th Mr Karzai, brimming with confidence, flew to Rome to meet the ex-king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, who is supposed to open a loya jirga, or grand council, to construct a more permanent government in six months' time.

The elderly monarch, who has scarcely said a word since the war began, is probably the least of Mr Karzai's problems. Potentially much more troublesome is Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of the Tajik-Uzbek Northern Alliance, de facto ruler of Kabul and pre-Taliban president of the country, who has been strong-armed into giving up power. Although he has acquiesced, Mr Rabbani was still squatting in his palace at mid-week, and the time-honoured ethnic rivalry is bound to rear its head before long.

Members of the old Taliban regime may also need close watching. On December 16th Mullah Agha Jan Mutasim, the former finance minister, said that, if a stable Islamic government were to be established, “We don't intend to launch any action against it.” Small comfort for a regime that may well be unstable for some time.

The interim government's hopes of survival, as well as the country's hopes of peace, depend heavily on outside help. The first detachment of international peacekeepers, predominantly from Britain, Germany and Turkey with American back-up in an emergency, were expected to set themselves up in Kabul by December 22nd, alongside the interim government. They will keep the peace mostly in Kabul itself, and perhaps in scattered points beyond. But their numbers and powers are still a matter of dispute.

Both Mr Rabbani and Mohammed Fahim, the interim defence minister, want no more than 1,000 peacekeepers in Afghanistan. The German defence minister, Rudolf Scharping, thinks at least 8,000 should be sent; any fewer would be “unacceptable”. Britain, which has agreed to lead the force at first (see article), has cut its contribution. Whereas military planners once talked of sending about 3,000 men, between 1,000 and 1,500 will now go, “for several months, just to get the security force going,” in Tony Blair's words.

The powers the peacekeepers will wield, especially while western troops are still conducting search-and-destroy operations, are very unclear. The Afghans appear to see them as glorified security guards. Abdullah Abdullah, the interim foreign minister, has demanded that any peacekeeping units be constrained by a UN mandate to use force only in self-defence, and the Northern Alliance says it wants them there mostly to protect government meetings.

Mr Scharping insists, and the British and Russians agree, that any peacekeepers deployed to Afghanistan will need a mandate much stouter than this, and will have to be allowed to impose peace by force if necessary. The peacekeepers also want a link to the American commander in Florida, so that all deployed units will know what the others are doing. No contributing country wants to see its men become targets (for all sides) if war breaks out again.

British officials have nevertheless insisted that a first gathering of potential troop-contributing nations, convened in London on December 14th, was a great success. At least 16 governments—including those of France, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jordan and Malaysia—held a second round of talks in London on December 19th. At least 200 British marines were expected to get to Kabul on time.

But even as these preparations for keeping the peace gathered pace, military operations of a more classic kind were still in progress. The American air force launched 138 bombing sorties over Afghanistan on December 17th, according to the Pentagon, most of them over Tora Bora and around Kandahar. It made as many the next day, but dropped no bombs. Donald Rumsfeld, America's defence secretary, on a surprise visit to troops in Afghanistan, dared to speak of his country's ambitions there in the past tense. “We were here”, he said, “for the sole purpose of expelling terrorists from the country and establishing a government that would not harbour terrorism.” He insisted, however, that the job was not done.

A day or so later, Mr Rumsfeld used a meeting with fellow NATO defence ministers in Brussels to repeat the theme that the American-led offensive would not be ended quickly. On the contrary, he said, “the task is still ahead of us [and] it's going be tough.” He also reaffirmed that America reserved the right to strike targets associated with al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia, and possibly farther afield, without additional authorisation from the UN Security Council. His NATO counterparts agreed that their forces must also be reorganised to take on more missions far from home in the fight against terrorism.

There may be only one outstanding military task in Afghanistan which intensely concerns America's Defence Department, and that is carrying out the wishes of President Bush to get hold of Mr bin Laden “dead or alive”. Once that is done, American interest will probably shift to the danger that still looms from other places. Mr Rumsfeld said in Brussels that the terrorist attacks of September 11th may have been only a “dim preview” of the destruction that western cities—European as well as American—may face if violent states or terrorist groups acquire armouries of non-conventional weapons.

“Contemplate the destruction they could wreak in New York, or London, or Paris, or Berlin with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons,” he urged his audience. For all the success in Afghanistan, America's often breezy defence secretary has no illusions that this war is over.